allAfrica.com: Kenya: Safaricom to Revolutionise Microfinance

Vodafone Kenya has joined the money transfer trend in M-Payments. The Mobile payment solutions in South Africa and the Philipines see the majority of large payments being made at the expense of Western Union.

I wonder if we will see the same increase in banking uptake as Standard Bank has seen in South Africa. The Economist reported that the launch of payments by MTN has seen over 700,000 people have joined the banking system. It will be interesting to see if once again it will be the mobile phone that extends the middle class in the emerging markets.